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Children's Centres under review

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"Safehands Victoria road nursery should be closed! That nursery is disgusting, the staff are always stood around talking instead of learning the children like they get paid for! The kids run riot in there. My sister went there and we took her out after the stuff we seen, she cried when we took her and she is not 1 to cry around kids as she loves playing but we found out there 1 kid being horrible and my mum when to pick her up and my sister was unsupervised playing in a sink of water she was soaked! My partners kid is always having bumps to his heads and last week he CUT HIS HAIR AT NURSERY! Where was the member of staff that is meant to be supervising him? They don't put aprons on the kids when there painting! We have now took enough crap and taking him elsewhere"

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Cheshire West and Chester Council (CWAC) is looking at de-registering less popular centres so they can be earmarked for community use.

This could include them being given back to schools which need extra accommodation.

The issue was discussed at a meeting of CWAC’s children and education scrutiny committee.

Clr Mark Stocks, executive member for children and young people, said: “As members will be aware the council has to save around £50 million over the next three years.

“The one thing that is evident is that we can’t just continue to just trim bits and pieces from budgets here and there.

“We propose to de-register a number of our children’s centres, enabling them to be used for the community through additional classrooms, children and community facilities etc.

“This will enable us to focus on delivering high quality, appropriately staffed and core early years service.”

Deprivation, reach and operational costs of the buildings could be considered when determining if a children’s centre should be de-registered.

De-registration would only take place after a public consultation in the area.

Clr Nicole Meardon, committee chairman, said she was concerned about the impact of de-registration.

“I know a lot of our children’s centres are attached to schools and obviously if they were de-registered and the school then took on that classroom space, that children’s centre would essentially not exist,” she said.

“There may very well be one down the road if you’ve got a car but if you haven’t got a car and you’re in some of our more needy areas, then you’re not going to be able to access that desperately needed support.”

Consultation will begin if the proposals are agreed by the executive and ratified by council on March 3.

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